Free Spirit's FOCUS Awards Thursday, Alum Answers Five Questions

May 31, 2016
by Screenmag

Free Spirit Media will host its annual FOCUS fundraiser on Thursday and we thought it was a good opportunity to ask one of the program's alums Five Questions. This year also marks the 15th anniversary of the organization.

The event takes place at Fremont, 15 W. Illinois, on Thursday, June 2, from 6-9 p.m. There will be a brief presentation with remarks by students, alums, and leadership from 7-7:15 p.m Tickets for FOCUS are $50 each, and include food, an open bar, and three hours of entertainment, including youth media, a live DJ, a raffle, and a brief presentation. Buy tickets here.

For now, check out Five Questions with Free Spirit's Skyler Quinten Dees. He's been involved with the organization for 10 years.

"I've been a lot of things within the organization," he says. "First I was a student, then an intern, then an international film award winner, then a fly on the wall for pre-production, then an initial member of Free Spirit Pro where I worked in Production and Post, and now I am a committee member for FOCUS 2016."

Without further ado, Dees answers Five Questions.

SCREEN: Can you cook? If so, what's your go-to dish?

DEES: Yes, I cook professionally. Favorite dish...anything that I don't jack up during R&D, I mean "YouTube and Cook".

SCREEN: What's your guilty pleasure TV?

DEES: HOW IT'S MADE. In my day, before there was binge watching, there were TV marathons. I could champion through Le Mans-esqe hours learning of Le Creuset cookware and circuit boards.

SCREEN: What's the last movie you saw in a theater?

DEES: Oddly, BATMAN V. SUPERMAN. So much propaganda in this action packed bromance. Jesse Eisenberg's monologues were written by at least two of Hillary Clinton's speech writers.

SCREEN: What's your favorite place to spend a week? A weekend? Two weeks?

DEES: A Week: Roxbury in Boston. A Weekend: Morondava, Madagascar. Two Weeks: Calgary

SCREEN: What's your favorite gadget?

DEES: My Up3 by Jawbone. It's all like "Were you active between 3:09pm to 3:28pm?" and I am like "Yeah, I walked around my neighborhood to find a mailbox." It has sleep tracking as well, so I am on a interpersonal discovery to crack a portal to one hour of deep sleep so far I'm at thirty-six minutes.

BONUS QUESTION:

SCREEN: What are you looking forward to about the summer?​

DEES: This summer excites me for one reason: dinner parties. Gathering groups of folks around good food and Chicago summer weather. Supreme.